Voice For The Voiceless: K. Rajeshwar Rao’s Fight For The Rights Of The Deceased

Even though India passed the Transplantation Of Human Organs Act in 1994, The Daily Mail quotes a World Health Organisation (WHO) report of 2007 that cites a resurgence in illegal organ trafficking, with an approximated 2,000 people selling their kidneys every year. A market driven by a huge demand with a minimal supply of legal organ donations, dubious doctors and organ brokers continue to exploit the prevailing illiteracy and poverty in the country, and continue to run an underground black market for organ trade. What’s worse is that these acts of sheer exploitation have over time extended to the deceased in hospitals. Unknown and unclaimed bodies mysteriously ‘vanish’ only to be sold for organs and to medical colleges in need of cadavers at extravagant rates. A scandal shook Hyderabad in 2015 when it was uncovered that close to 117 bodies were ‘absconding’ from two big state-run hospitals, Osmania General Hospital (OGH) and Gandhi Hospital, brought to light by an RTI filed by Satya Harishchandra Foundation (SHF), an NGO founded by Dr. K. Rajeshwar Rao, along with Sreenivas Moorthy of Loksatta Party. Patients were admitted as Medico-Legal Cases, between January 1 and August 15, reports Times Of India.

The entire case points to the highly profitable market buying and selling dead bodies across the nation with huge involvement of the mafia, private medical collages are willing to shell out lakhs for each depending on the gender;“female bodies cost around Rs 15 lakh in the market and male bodies, Rs 4 lakh. In 2015 alone, more than 120 bodies went missing from Osmania and Gandhi Mortuaries,” adds Rao.

It was back in the day when Rao worked as a lab technician at OGH that he come across the entire racket. Numerous unclaimed and unidentified bodies would be sold-off illegally, he also noticed the ill-treatment of the families of the deceased by some doctors. At times, the body of their loved one being replaced with a rotten and decayed to the point of being unidentifiable, while the original was sold for profit. The entire experience was gut-wrenching for Rao, and following suit, he quit his hospital job and set up SHF in 1994 along with his brothers, braving attacks and threats from mafia goons and organ brokers to serve the helpless and lifeless.

A statement on the organisation’s website reads: “since there is no one to gather information and pass it to the victim families of such unclaimed bodies and no one to preserve information of such people, many well-to-do people are also becoming unknown/unclaimed dead bodies. S.H.F. stands as a platform for unfortunate brethren, bridging the gap between such unclaimed dead bodies and their families...about 10 such unclaimed bodies are being added daily to the mortuaries in Osmania and Gandhi Hospitals from railway stations and bus stands, etc. It is very difficult to know the where abouts of the missing and unidentified dead bodies in our city. Therefore, this foundation took up voluntarily, with the service motto, the responsibility of gathering the photographs of the unclaimed bodies for preserving the information as well as to pass such information to the kith and kin.”

The work done by Rao and SHF is not something many people would volunteer to undertake, and it’s highly commendable. The organisation estimates that they cremate eight to ten bodies each day in the out skirts of the city, graveyard authorities within the city would often object to the stench of the rotting corpses. Rs.700 is paid by the government for funeral expenses, while the remainder is funded by the organisation and donors. Close to 2570 bodies from the Gandhi Hospital and 2950 from Osmania have been adopted and cremated by SHF. The Foundation’s website is updated regularly with photographs and information regarding unclaimed bodies they come across. They claim to have performed last rites for over 3500 people; “information regarding 1150 unclaimed bodies was passed on to their respective families thus providing them the opportunity of viewing their beloved ones for an last time and to perform the last rites. We firmly believe that performing one´s last rites is the most sacred task.”

SHF’s goal is to serve as an active centre of information regarding unclaimed, unidentified and unknown bodies of deceased, and to pass it on to their kin. They claim bodies from mortuaries within 72 hours of their passing in order to avoid further bodily degredation and possible health hazards in public interest. With a team of eight people and over 100 volunteers, destitute patients in government hospitals are rehabilitated with admission into old age homes and bodies of people who pass away due to disease like HIV, TB and other infectious diseases, that are often abandoned by their families in the morgue, are given due respect and proper cremations.

Theirs is a noble cause, and despite tackling several hurdles they have carried on without a hint of reluctance. Filmmaker Anshul Sinha in his film, Gateway To Heaven brings silent hero Rao, as well as the members of SHF, into focus to tell the tale of good deeds done while battling corruption of medical staff, government officials and the mafia. “I treat every day as my last day, and do what I want,” says Rao, fearing that he too can be one of the bodies recovered from the morgue, any day now. “The government is only concerned about vote banks,” he comments.“I work for the deceased and if the deceased could vote, I would have become a leader or an MLA by now…[what] I expect from the society is to cooperate, sympathise and empathise with the aggrieved.”